Frederick Douglass's Influence

on the War Strategy of

Arbraham Lincoln
by
Dr. Edward C. Smith
#1
Professor Smith teaches at The American University and is  a
Civil  War  and  Afro-American  Heritage  Lecturer  for  The
Smithsonian  Institution  and  the  Historical  Society   of
Washington,  D.C.   He  is  also  an Associate Editor of The
Lincoln Review.  This lecture was delivered at  St.   John's
College, Annapolis, in February, 1992.(used with permission)
#2
The publication of Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  in  1852  ignited  a
firestorm   of   abolitionist  fervor  that  quickly  spread
throughout the North.  The novel achieved its objective  (of
exposing  the  dark  side  of  tile South) by pulling at the
heart strings (of the  many  Americans  who  knew  virtually
nothing about plantation life and could not began to imagine
the reality of the daily sufferings of millions of slaves.  

Two years later in 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed.
Its principle architect was U.S.  Senator Stephen A.  Douglas
of  Illinois.  The act had the immediate effect of replacing
the Missouri Compromise  of  1820,  which  though  admitting
Missouri into the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free
state, excluded slavery from the vast  northern  regions  of
the  Louisiana Purchase Territory.  Now, with the passing of
this act, a new formula for dealing with slavery  came  into
being.   Through  the principle of "popular sovereignty" the
people of each territory could choose to be either a free or
a slave society.  Until citizens of the regions voted on the
issue, masters were free to  take  their  slaves  into  most
western territories.  As a consequence of this new policy, a
northern zone, presumed  to  be  forever  free,  had  become
vulnerable to pro-slavery expansion.                        

From  the  beginning,  most  northern  politicians  saw  the
Kansas-Nebraska  Act  as a southern conspiracy to expect the
South's powerful presence in the  nation's  capitol.   After
all  Washington,  D.C.,  was a proud and distinctly southern
city.   Lest  we  forget  the  Mason-Dixon  Line   separates
Maryland  from  Pennsylvania.   During the 1850s Southerners
were  the  most  influential  leaders  in  both  houses   of
Congress.  Also, the South dominated the White House; before
the  Civil  War,  nine  of  the  nation's  presidents   were
southerners,  seven  of  them  from  the  state of Virginia.
Additionally,  the  South's  special  interests  were   well
represented  and  protected  in  the judicial rulings of the
southern dominated Supreme Court.                           

The issues surrounding the Kansas-Nebraska Act gave birth to
the  all-northern  Republican  party, which was committed to
preventing  the  spread  of   slavery   into   the   western
territories.   One  of  its  earliest  members  was  Abraham
Lincoln, who eventually became the head of the new parry  in
Illinois.  Through his extensive readings of the writings of
the founding fathers, Lincoln  had  convinced  himself  that
although  many  of  our  nation's  earliest  leaders greatly
benefited from the culture  of  "enlightened  leisure"  that
slavery  provided, they nonetheless disliked the institution
and were working toward  its  gradual  extinction.   He  saw
evidence  of  this  in  the presence of the many free blacks
living throughout the South who had achieved  their  freedom
though  the  benign  will  of their magnanimous masters.  In
addition, he was deeply  impressed  by  the  fact  that  the
nation's  capitol,  founded  in  1791,  was co-designed by a
brilliant free black inventor  and  surveyor  from  Maryland
named  Benjamin  Banneker.  Even though his law practice was
thriving and  he  had  earned  the  reputation  of  being  a
"lawyer's Lawyer," the crises of the 1850s greatly disturbed
Lincoln  and  he  felt  compelled  to  stake  his  political
position  so  that  there  would  be no doubt about where he
stood  on  certain  significant  matters.    Regarding   the
question   of   slavery,   he   became   an   uncompromising
anti-extensionist.                                          
#3
During the 1960s it  became  fashionable  among  many  civil
rights  and "black power" activists (and their white allies)
to besmirch Lincoln's reputation as "The Great Emancipator."
They  argued  that  Lincoln  freed  the  slaves  only  as  a
consequence of military necessity and that their  liberation
was  not  rooted in his respect for their inherent humanity.
Nothing  could  be  further  from  the  truth.   I  recently
discovered  a  speech  he  gave  in Peoria Illinois, shortly
after joining the Republican party.  In it  he  engaged  the
southern  sympathizers  in his audience through a rhetorical
dialogue  without  faulting  them  for  the  origin  or  the
continuation   of   slavery   as  an  intrinsic  institution
protected by both state and federal law.  But he did  appeal
to  their  sense  of decency, believing that, like him, they
too felt that there was humanity in  the  Negro.   He  asked
those gathered.                                             

Do  you  deny  this?  Then why thirty-four years ago did you
join the North in branding the African slave trade as an act
of  piracy  punishable  by  death?   You  have amongst you a
sneaking individual, of the class of native  tyrants,  known
as the 'SLAVEDEALER' He watches your necessities, and crawls
up to buy your slave, at a speculating price.  If you cannot
help  it, you sell to him: but if you can help it, you drive
him from your door.  You despise him utterly.   You  do  not
recognize  him  as a friend, or even as an honest man.  Your
children must not play with his;  they  may  rollick  freely
with  the  little  Negroes, but not with the "slavedealer's"
children.  If you are obliged to deal with him, you  try  to
get  through the job without so much as touching him.  It is
common with you to join hands with the  men  you  meet;  but
with  the "slavedealer" you avoid the ceremony-instinctively
shrinking from the snaky contact.                           

He continues:                                               

Now why is this?  Is it  not  because  your  human  sympathy
tells  you  that  the  poor  Negro has some natural right to
himself, that those who deny it, and make  mere  merchandise
of him, deserve kickings, contempt and death?               

He concludes his remarks in a very dramatic manner.         

Fellow  countrymen, Americans south, as well as north let us
turn slavery from its claim of "moral right" back  upon  its
existing legal right...  and there let it rest in peace.  Let
us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence,  and  with  it,
the  practices,  and  policy,  which harmonize with it.  Let
north  and  south--let  all  Americans--let  all  lovers  of
liberty  everywhere--join the great and good work.  If we do
this, we shall not only have saved the Union  but  we  shall
have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy
of the saving.                                              

Lincoln discovered quickly that his appeals fell  upon  deaf
ears.   Most southerners who chose to speak out on the issue
believed Negro bondage was sanctioned by the  Bible  and  an
expression  of  God's  divine  will.   They  contended, even
though  they  saw  free,   hard-working,   articulate,   and
law-abiding  Negroes  around them all the time, that somehow
blacks were basically subhuman and  belonged  in  chains  as
naturally as horses in stables and cows in pens.            

In 1857 the pro-southern Supreme  Court  (presided  over  by
Chief Jutice Roger B.  Taney, a slave-owning aristocrat from
Maryland) handed down the infamous Dred Scott decision.  The
Court decreed that Negroes were inferior people who were not
and never had been  United  States  citizens  and  that  the
Constitution    and   Declaration   of   Independence   were
exclusively "white-only" charters that were  never  intended
to  apply  to  them.  More importantly as far as Lincoln was
concerned, the Courts  ruling  clearly  meant  that  neither
Congress  nor  a territorial government could outlaw slavery
in the national  lands,  because  to  do  so  would  violate
southern   property   rights  as  guaranteed  by  the  Fifth
Amendment.  Republicans understood that the  net  effect  of
the   ruling   was   to  legalize  slavery  in  all  federal
territories from Canada to Mexico.                          
#4
In 1858, Lincoln and many of his fellow Republicans began to
see  a  treacherous conspiracy at work in America--a plot on
the part of southern leaders and their  northern  Democratic
allies  to  reverse  the  whole course of modern history, to
halt the progress of  human  liberty  as  other  reactionary
forces  in the world were attempting to do, namely in Russia
and certain areas of western Europe.  For Lincoln, the Union
had  reached  a  crucible.  If the future of a free American
was to be saved so as to serve as  a  noble  symbol  to  the
world,  it  was imperative that he and his party marshal the
necessary resources to stay the hand of the conspirators; at
all  costs  slavery  must  not be allowed to expand onto the
frontier.                                                   

Only four years after becoming a Republican, Abraham Lincoln
challenges  Stephen A.  Douglas for his senate seat.  He now
has  a  forum  whereby  he  can  fiercely   articulate   his
anti-slavery sentiments.  He tells his audiences how much he
hates the peculiar institution: "It is  a  vast  moral  evil
because  it  violates  America's 'central idea' .  .  .  the
idea of equality and the right to rise." Yet  Lincoln,  ever
the pragmatic realist, clearly understood that no matter how
evil slavery was, it could not be abolished in those  states
where it already existed.                                   

There  were  seven  Lincoln-Douglas  debates  and  they  all
focused  on  One  subject,   slavery.    Douglas   countered
Lincoln's  posture by labeling him a 'black Republican and a
member of a mob of radical abolitionists who were determined
to impose their will upon the South.  Additionally, Douglas,
more so than Lincoln, understood  the  depth  of  anti-black
feeling in Illinois and he masterfully played to these white
racial fears.  He warned his audiences, "Do you want Negroes
to  flood  into our state and spread the prairies with black
settlements, and eat, sleep, and marry white people?  If you
do,  then vote for Mr.  Lincoln and the black Republicans.'"
Then he would  frequently  add,  "But  I  am  against  Negro
citizenship,  I want citizenship for whites only.  I believe
that this government was made by  the  white  man,  for  the
benefit  of  the  white man, to be administered by the white
man.  I do not question Mr.  Lincoln's conscientious  belief
that the Negro was made his equal and hence his brother, but
for my own part, I do not regard the Negro as my equal,  and
positively  deny  that  he  is  my  brother or any kin to me
whatever."                                                  

Lincoln lost decisively to Douglas.  His  views  on  slavery
were  well  beyond  what  the  great  majority of his fellow
Illinoisans could tolerate.  He even lost  his  "home  base"
constituencies of Springfield and Sangamon County.          

In   the  year  following  the  Great  Debates,  fire-eating
abolitionist John Brown, with a small  contingent  of  loyal
supporters,  attacked  the  federal  arsenal  Harper  Ferry,
Virginia  in  an  attempt  to  launch  a  full-scale   slave
rebellion that would quickly spread throughout the state and
into the lower south.  The raid  was  quickly  repulsed  and
Union  soldier, under the command of Colonel Robert E.  Lee,
captured Brown, who was later tried and hanged for  treason.
For  most  southerners,  John  Brown's behavior was all they
needed   to   convince   themselves   that   the    northern
abolitionists,  supported  by  the  all-northern  Republican
party, wanted only to drown the South in a river  of  blood.
Of  course,  Lincoln and his colleagues rushed to deny these
hysterical accusations and argued that executing  Brown  was
just  conduct  by the state because his actions were a clear
violation of the law.                                       

It  is  clear  that  Abraham  Lincoln  never   covered   the
presidency.   He correctly saw the job for what it was then,
purely administrative in nature.  The president  had  clerks
and  subordinates  to  supervise, but he bad no "peers" with
whom to discuss and  debate  the  great  issues  facing  the
nation.  Lincoln wanted to be a United States senator, to be
a part of a  forum  where  the  country's  greatest  orators
wrestled  against  each  other  as in the days of republican
Rome.  But his loss to Douglas made him available to  pursue
the  path  to the White House and so he was nominated by his
party to be its standard-bearer  in  the  1860  presidential
election,  with  the  mandate  to  campaign on a "free-soil,
free-labor" platform.  The time had come  to  see  if  those
advanced  social  views of his that were soundly rejected in
Illinois by those who knew him well, would  be  accepted  by
those in other states who knew him not at all.              

Lincoln  was  an  energetic  and   imaginative   campaigner.
Whatever  he  spoke  he took firm stands that slavery was an
evil  and  must  be  contained  in  the  South  and  yet  he
constantly  reminded audiences that neither he nor his party
would interfere with southern slavery; after all, they  were
restrained   by   law.    The   federal  government  had  no
constitutional authority (at least in peacetime)  to  tamper
with  a  state-sanctioned  institution,  particularly one as
volatile as slavery.                                        
#5
Most source in 1860 did not trust Lincoln to his  word.   In
him  they  saw  John  Brown  reincarnate  and began to brace
themselves for the inevitable  invasion  that  many  thought
would  be  forthcoming  if  "the  black-hearted abolitionist
fanatic," as he was known throughout the South, were  chosen
to become the nation's sixteenth president.                 

Lincoln's  election  on  November  6,  1860,  sent  southern
leaders spiraling; their worst fears had come  to  fruition.
Secessionist  fire-eaters,  who  were  a  militant minority,
rapidly raw to positions of  prominence.   Men  like  Robert
Toombs,  Howell  Cobb,  Robert  Barnwell  Rhett, and William
Lowndes Yancey were eagerly sought after for guidance. "What
should  the  South  do?" the people asked.  The fire-eaters'
answer came in one word: secede, secede, secede!"           

On December 20,1860,South Carolina took the  initiative  and
soon  other  southern  states  would  follow  her  lead into
secession.  While still living in Springfield, Illinois,  as
president-elect,  Lincoln was outraged by this behavior.  He
could not understand why southerners were so incensed by his
election.   He had promised them in speech after speech that
they had absolutely  no  reason  for  fearing  him  and  his
administration,  that  he would not disturb slavery; in fact
he promised them that he would protect the  institution,  as
long  as  It  remained  where  it  was  and  did  not expand
elsewhere.                                                  

In his inaugural address of March 4,1861, Lincoln  presented
himself to his southern adversaries as a man, of moderation,
not a radical  revolutionary.   He  reminded  them  that  he
approved  the original Thirteenth Amendment, recently passed
by Congress (but left unratified by the  states  because  of
the  dismemberment  of  the Union), which explicitly granted
slavery in the southern states.  He endorsed the  amendment,
not  because  he liked it (which he did not), but because he
felt it  to  be  wholly  consistent  with  Republican  party
ideology  with  regard  to the containment of slavery in the
South.  He concluded his speech with the following words:   

I am loth to close.  'We are not enemies, but  friends.   We
must  not  be enemies.  Though passion may have strained, it
must not break our bonds of affection.  The mystic chords of
memory,  Stretching  from  every  battlefield, and patriotic
grave, to every living heart and heartstone, all  over  this
broad  land,  will  yet  swell the chorus of the Union, when
again touched, as surely they will be by the  better  angels
of our nature.                                              

The  president was counting on southern unionists to rise to
the ramparts and rebuff southern  secessionists  and  return
the rebellious states to their rightful places in the Union.
His faith was sorely misplaced, moderation  was  a  distinct
minority  point  of  view  in  the South.  On the eve of war
radicalism reigned supreme.                                 

South Carolina,  the  first  state  to  secede,  seized  the
opportunity  to  draw first fire as well.  Its attack on the
Union garrison at Fort Sumter on April 12 brought  upon  the
nation  the  contest  of arms that, in spite of the petulant
bravado of both sides, no reasonable man or woman in  either
the  North  or the South had wanted.  Now the president felt
duty-bound to raise an army of 75,000  soldiers  for  ninety
days  of  service  to  repress  this reckless rebellion.  To
accomplish this task he  needed  a  leader  of  unassailable
reputation,   a  commander  universally  respected  for  his
courage, honor, loyalty,  and  commitment.   Lincoln  needed
Lee.   Had  Lee  not  shown his courage and honor during the
Mexican War, had he not shown his loyalty and commitment  to
the  Union in capturing John Brown, preventing his rebellion
from spreading?  Clearly, Lee was the best man for  the  job
and  he lived just across the Potomac River on his 1100-acre
estate at Arlington.                                        

In reaction to Lincoln's  call  to  arms,  an  ordinance  of
session was introduced into the Virginia Convention on April
16.  The following day Lee received a letter  to  report  to
the  office  of General Winfred Scott.  However, Colonel Lee
was the first to appear at the home  of  Francis  P.   Blair
(now  the Blair House), whose son, Montgomery Blair, was the
attorney for Dred Scott during the litigation of his  famous
case  and  was a key presidents confidant.  Lee, a decorated
hero of the Mexican War and former superintendent of the  U.
S.   Military  Academy  at  West Point, was, in addition, an
imposing knight-like scion of the  celebrated  Lee  dynasty.
His father, Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee, was one of General
George  Washington's  principal  subordinates   during   the
Revolutionary  War.  Lee's wife, the former Mary Custis, was
President Washington's Step-great-granddaughter, and two  of
Lee's   ancestors   were   signers  of  the  Declaration  of
Independence.  Thus everything in Robert E.  Lee's long  and
illustrious  military career-amounting to nearly thirty-five
years of honorable serve-had prepared him for the assumption
of such authority.                                          
#6
On April 18, Francis Blair-authorized by  President  Lincoln
to  do  so-offered  Colonel  Lee the command of the new army
that was being  raised  to  crush  the  rebellion.   Without
hesitation,  he  responded  to  Blair:  "Though  opposed  to
session and deprecating war, I could  take  no  part  in  an
invasion  of  the  southern states." Upon leaving Blair, Lee
went to see his mentor,  General  Winfred  Scott,  a  fellow
Virginian.   Lee  shared with the general the essence of his
discussion with Blair, and Scott  replied:  "Lee,  you  have
made  the  greatest  mistake  of  your life, but I feared it
would be so." It is interesting that throughout  the  former
Confederate   states,   both   during  the  war's  immediate
aftermath and through today, Lee continues to be lionized as
"the  South's favorite son," when in fact his loyalty was to
Virginia, first and foremost.  Indeed for  the  duration  of
the  war, he commanded only two battles outside of Virginia,
one at Antietam, the other  at  Gettysburg,  and  both  were
pivotal defeats for the Confederacy.                        

On  April  19, Lee learned that Virginia had voted to secede
from the union, but it had  not  yet  decided  to  join  the
Confederacy.   The  following  day, Colonel Lee went through
the wrenching  experience  of  writing  and  submitting  his
letter  of  resignation  on  to  General  Scott on April 24,
Virginia Consummated the act of secession by entering into a
military  alliance with the Confederacy which ultimately led
to the state's formal  incorporation  into  the  Confederate
States  of  America.  This occurred exactly one month later,
on May 24, when Virginia voters ratified  the  Ordinance  of
Session.                                                    

Like the American Revolutionary War, the Civil War was a war
of ,session.  The eleven Confederate states  declared  their
independence  from  the federal union in a manner similar to
the revolt of the thirteen colonies against the authority of
England.    Thus  our  victorious  and  beloved  "Stars  and
Stripes" is as much a rebel flag as  that  of  the  defeated
"Stan and Bars" of the lost cause of the Confederacy.       

Interestingly,  there  are  many other connections that link
the  colonial  rebellion  to  the   confederate   rebellion.
President  Jefferson  Davis  was named in honor of President
Thomas Jefferson.   The  Confederacy's  Vice  President  was
Alexander  Hamilton  Stevens,  named  in  honor of Alexander
Hamilton, principal co-author of the Federalist Papers.  One
of  the  South's  leading generals, Joseph E.  Johnston, was
the  grand-nephew  of  Patrick   Henry.    The   Confederate
Ambassador  to  England  was  James  Mason,  the grandson of
Virginia  statesman  George  Mason,  and  for  a  while  the
Confederacy's  secretary  of  war  was  George Randolph, the
grandson  of  Thomas   Jefferson.    Accompanying   Lee   at
Appomattox Courthouse was Lt.  Colonel Charles Marshall, the
grandson  of  U.   S.   Supreme  Court  Chief  Justice  John
Marshall,  who  served in that office from 1801 to 1835, and
who was also a colonel in the Continental  Army  during  the
Revolutionary  War.   There are many other Intimate familial
and  philosophical  associations  that  bind  the  two  wars
together.                                                   

In  securing  the  services  of  Lee  and  the  secession of
Virginia the Confederate rebellion attained  a  much  needed
"legitimacy,"  heretofore denied it.  After all, four of the
nation's first five presidents were Slave owning Virginians:
Washington,   Jefferson,  Madison,  and  Monroe.   Soon  the
Confederate capital was moved from Montgomery,  Alabama,  to
Richmond,  Virginia  and, because of its strategic location,
during the four years  of  war  sixty  percent  of  all  the
battles were fought on the blood-soaked soil of Virginia.   

But  Lincoln hardly had the time to bemoan the losses of Lee
and Virginia.  He now had to concentrate  his  attention  on
doing   what,   for  him,  was  the  most  unpleasant  thing
imaginable, to wage war against one's fellow citizens.      

At the time of his loss of Lee,  Lincoln  could  not  forsee
that  he  would  soon  be  gaining  the  loyal  service of a
different kind of "soldier," a warrior  who  graduated  from
the  "academy"  of adversity and who, like the president had
taught himself how to read and  write  with  such  eloquence
that  all  who  knew  him  stood  in  awe of his talents and
tenacity.  This man was none other than Frederick  Douglass,
the slave who had become the leading black author and orator
of  his  time.    His   personal   demeanor   and   towering
accomplishments  were living proof of the absolute absurdity
of the idea of racial inferiority.                          

The first major battle of the Civil War, the Battle of  Bull
Run,  occurred on July 21, 1861, and was fought in Manassas,
Virginia.  The battle was a decisive Confederate victory.  It
served  notice  to  the North that a long and costly war was
ahead.   It  also  raised  from  obscurity  a   little-known
Virginia  Military  Institute  instructor who would become a
legend in  his  own  lifetime,  General  Thomas  "Stonewall"
Jackson.   The  general acquired his nickname because of his
performance in the battle and  although  Jackson  would  die
during  the  midpoint  of the war, in May, 1863, from wounds
accidentally inflected by his own men, he would  become  the
South's   second   most   celebrated   soldier,   Lee  being
unquestionably the first.                                   
#7
The following month, Frederick Douglass wrote  an  editorial
entitled   "Fighting  Rebels  With  Only  One  Hand,"  which
appeared in his own periodical, Douglass' Monthly.   In  the
article he chided the Union government for its absurd "white
man's war only" posture:                                    

What upon earth is the matter with the  American  government
and  people?   Do they really covert the world's ridicule as
well as their own social and political ruin?  What are  they
thinking  about,  or  don't they condescend to think at all.
So, indeed, it would seem from their  blindness  in  dealing
with the tremendous issue now upon them.                    

He continued:                                               

Our  President, governors, generals are calling, with almost
frantic Vehemence, for men; "men!  men!  men!  send us men!"
they scream, or the cause of the Union is gone; .  .  .  and
yet  these  very  officers,  representing  the  people   and
government,  steadily and persistently refuse to receive the
very class of men which have a deeper interest in the defeat
and humiliation of the rebels, than all others ...  Why does
the government reject the Negro?  Is he not a man?   Can  he
not  wield  a sword, fire a gun, march and countermarch, and
obey orders like any other?                                 

He concluded his comments with the following remark:        

If persons so humble as we can be allowed to  speak  to  the
President  of  the  United States, we should ask him if this
dark and terrible hour of the nation's extremity is  a  time
for  consulting  a  mere vulgar and unnatural prejudice.  We
would tell him that this is no time to fight with one  hand,
when  both  are  needed;  that this is no time to fight only
with your white hand, and allow your black  hand  to  remain
tied.   When  the  government continues to refuse the aid of
colored men, thus alienating them from the  national  cause,
and  giving  the  rebels  the  advantage of them it will not
deserve better fortunes than it has thus far experienced.   

On April 16, 1862, Congress abolished slavery in Washington,
D.  C.  It was a great source of embarrassment, particularly
for strident abolitionists, that for the first full year  of
the war, the nation's capitol was a slave-holding community.
Frederick Douglass seized the moment and constantly  pressed
the  president  to  throw  the  full weight of his authority
behind the  idea  that  the  war  must  be  expanded  beyond
Lincoln's  limitations.  Douglass frequently grew frustrated
by the presidents cautiousness and in his annual  Fourth  of
July  Speech  of  1862  he  railed  against Mr.  Lincoln for
refusing to take the bold step of saying the  principal  war
aim was not to reunite the Union but to destroy slavery.  In
that address he said:                                       

Jefferson Davis is a powerful man, but Jefferson  Davis  has
no  such  power  to blast the hope and break down the strong
heart of the nation,  as  that  Possessed  in  exercised  by
Abraham  Lincoln.   We  have a right to hold Abraham Lincoln
sternly responsible for any disaster or failure attending to
the suppression of this rebellion.                          

Lincoln  was  quick  to  react  to  Douglass's  vituperation
because he Personally felt exactly  the  same  passion  but,
unlike  Douglass,  he  was  an  elected  politician  who was
restrained by rules of  law  and  the  fear  of  losing  his
moderate constituency of supporters if he appeared to be the
captive of the fire-eater abolitionist element of his party.
Nonetheless, on July 22, 1862, he presented to his cabinet a
"secret" draft of a Proclamation of Emancipation.           

Secretary of State Seward advised the president to wait  for
a  major battlefield victory before announcing his intention
to end slavery.  This was very wise advice  indeed,  because
of in late August 1862, the Confederates decisively defeated
the Union Army at the Second Battle of Bull Run, paving  the
way  for  the  South's  first counter-invasion of the North,
which would culminate at Sharpsburg, Maryland, at the Battle
of Antietam.                                                

The  Davis  Cabinet,  and  most members of his military high
command, Knew that the South's spirited resistance to  north
assault  could  last  only  for  so  long, absent of foreign
assistance.  Both England  and  France,  less  dependent  on
southern   cotton   than   the  South  thought,  were  being
aggressively courted by the Confederacy to come to its  aid.
And in London and Paris the Union's Ambassador was trying to
dissuade  such  intervention.   Interestingly,   the   Union
Ambassador  to  Great Britain was Charles Francis Adams, son
of President John Quincy Adams.  And, as stated earlier, his
counterpart  representing  the  interests of the Confederacy
was Ambassador James  Mason,  grandson  of  the  pre-eminent
Virginia statesman, George Mason.                           

The  South was convinced that a decisive Confederate victory
in Maryland, so near Washington,  D.   C.,  would  not  only
bring  the  state  (with its many southern sympathizes) into
Confederacy, but would also cam  the  much-desired  European
recognition  as well.  Thus, on the morning of September 17,
1862, the Battle of Antietam began.  At  dusk  the  day  end
with  the  final  firing of shot and then and is recorded as
the single bloodiest day in all of American history.  Nearly
30,000  soldiers  fell.  Many of the survivors were so badly
wounded that they died only a few days later.               
#8
Technically speaking, the Battle  of  Antietam  ended  in  a
draw.   Lee  was  able  to  retreat  successfully across the
Potomac with his army intact, and his adversary,  George  B.
McClellan,  chose not to follow in pursuit.  Had he done so,
most students of the battle believe that  Lee's  army  would
have been caught and crushed and perhaps the war ended right
then and there.  As it was, Lee and his men would live on to
fight for nearly three more long and bitter years.          

As  we have seen President Lincoln was an astute politician,
perhaps the finest this nation has ever  produced.   He  saw
the  Battle  of  Antietam  not  as  a  'draw' but as a Union
victory.  And now he had the battlefield victory that Seward
said he needed in order to free the slaves.  Five days after
Antietam,  Lincoln  refined  his  Preliminary   Emancipation
Proclamation  and  on  September 22 he announced that it was
designed to enter into effect on January 1, 1863.   It  soon
became obvious that the Preliminary Proclamation contributed
to a Republican party disaster at  the  polls  in  the  fall
elections  of  1862.   Democrats  in  the  North were deeply
disturbed by Lincoln's harsh war  measures,  especially  his
use  of  "unwarranted"  martial law and military arrests and
trials.  However, black emancipation meant much more to them
as  an  issue; it was simply too much for them to absorb and
thus they campaigned tirelessly against  the  president  and
his  party.   They employed "Negro-phobia" without limit and
frightened war-weary northerners with the notion that  their
region  of  the  country  would  become saturated with black
refugees once the war was over.  As a  consequence  of  this
racially   inflamed   campaigning,  the  North's  five  most
populous states--all of  which  had  voted  for  Lincoln  in
1860--now  returned  Democratic  majorities to Capitol Hill.
Although the Republican party retained control of  Congress,
the future looked bad for the upcoming presidential election
in 1864.                                                    

Most   Republicans,   including   the   president   himself,
acknowledged  That the Proclamation was a significant factor
in the massive  Republican  defeats.   But  Lincoln  told  a
delegation  from  his  home  state Of Kentucky that he would
rather die than retract a single word in  his  Proclamation.
Mr.   Lincoln  had greatly pleased his principal black ally.
In a  speech,  Frederick  Douglass  said:  "From  a  genuine
abolition  view,  Mr.  Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and
indifferent, but measuring  him  by  the  sentiment  of  his
country--a   sentiment  he  was  bound  as  a  statesman  to
consult--he was swift, zealous,  radical,  and  determined."
Now  the  two men were as one and would proceed to fight the
war together to its brutal and bitter end.   On  New  Year's
Day,   1863,  the  president  officially  signed  the  final
Emancipation Proclamation in the White House.   He  informed
everyone in attendance that he was completely  confident  in
what  he was doing.  "If my name ever goes into history," he
said, "let it be for this act."                             

Clearly, Frederick Douglass had won his private "war" (which
he  had  been  waging  from the beginning) against Lincoln's
vacillations and trepidations and now he  would  employ  all
the  resources  at his command to help the president win the
war against the south.                                      

The CivilWar can be divided into distinct halves.  The first
half,  from April 12, 1861, until December 31, 1862, was the
"reunification of the Union"; from January 1, 1863,  through
April  9, 1865, was the "crusade against slavery." Frederick
Douglass.  more so than any other American white  or  black,
made  the  second  half happen and it was during that period
that the war  was  finally  won.   Douglass  now  set  about
traveling  the country raising units of black soldiers to be
trained to  fight  in  the  Union  Amy.   Sumner  and  other
abolitionists  had  joined  in  urging  Lincoln  to  see the
military reasons (to overcome the staggering Union  manpower
losses)  and  the  morale reasons (to permit blacks to fight
for their own freedom) for using black troops.              

Douglass helped to raise the  54th  Massachusetts  Regiment,
the  first  black Union unit.  Two of his sons served in the
regiment, which was commanded by Colonel Robert Gould  Shaw,
the   son   of  a  wealthy  and  politically  well-connected
abolitionist   from   Boston.    The   54th    Massachusetts
distinguished  itself  in  the Battle of Fort Wagner on July
18,  1863,  which  saw  the  deaths  of  half  the  regiment
including  its  courageous young commander.  The movie Glory
does an excellent job in memorializing  this  event  in  the
year, on May 1, 1863, the Confederate Congress declared that
black men bearing Union arms and wearing Union uniforms,  if
captured,  would  be  subject  to the law of the state where
they were caught and treated as insurrectionary  slaves  and
would  be punished by death.  The same punishment would also
apply to white officers of black units since they  would  be
found   guilty  for  inciting  "insurrectionary  rebellion."
Frederick Douglass was loud  in  his  denunciation  of  this
latest expression on of slaveholding barbarism and President
Lincoln wanted to counter the Confederate  move  because  he
knew  how difficult it would be for Douglass to recruit more
black soldiers  if  it  appeared  that  they  would  not  be
protected  by  the  Union government.  So, on July 30, 1863,
Lincoln signed an order requiring that "for every soldier of
the  United  States killed in violation of the law of war, a
rebel soldier shall be executed."                           
#9
The year 1863 represented a turing point in the war  on  all
fronts.    The   twin   Union   victories   at   Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, and Vicksburg,  Mississippi  were  devastating
losses from which southern forces never Fully recovered.  The
following year on March 12,  1864,  saw  the  ascendancy  of
General  Ulysses  S.   Grant to the position of commander in
chief of the Union Army in the field.  Grant was no military
romantic-to  him  war  was hell.  Grant's rise to leadership
meant that whatever  remained  of  chivalry  would  soon  be
replaced  by  a  policy of "victory by any means necessary."
Grant inaugurated a war of attrition.  He  frequently  said,
"Our  side  has  more bodies than their side has bullets; my
arithmetic says we will." With this type of  mentality,  the
list  of  casualties continued to grow at even higher rates.
Most northerners were losing their morale and their will  to
win  at  any  Cost.   "Was  it  worth it?" many asked.  Some
responded, "No, not at all." As a  consequence,  a  northern
"Peace  Party"  was  formed to challenge Lincoln in the 1864
presidential  election.   The  Peace  Party's   leader   and
presidential  candidate  was  Lincoln's  disgruntled  former
field commander, General McClellan.                         

The president, always a moody man, was easily prone to  slip
into   deep   depression   and   paralytic  melancholy.   He
considered it a very good possibility that he would lose his
bid  for  re-election.  If so, what then would happen to his
one  single   personal   and   professional   triumph,   the
Emancipation  Proclamation?   Would his successor remove it?
Would the war terminate  with  the  Union  permanently  torn
asunder?   These  grave  matters  prolonged  the president's
agony and despair.                                          

Fortunately for Lincoln, Grant  was  a  "fighting"  general.
Military  pomp and pageantry was wasteful to him, war was an
ugly business that had to be done  quickly  and  completely,
leaving  the enemy no opportunity to recover.  In May, 1864,
Grant began his assault upon Richmond with the Battle of the
Virginia  Wilderness and the Battle of Cold Harbor fought in
early June.  By mid-June he  was  attacking  the  formidably
fortified  city of Petersburg, Virginia, the "shield" of the
Confederate  capitol.   Lee  was   a   brilliant   defensive
commander,  but  he  was desperate.  He knew Grant would not
retreat but  would  continue,  regardless  of  his  manpower
losses,  to press on and on until final victory was secured.
Lee communicated his concerns to President Davis, Attempting
to prepare his commander in chief for the inevitable.       

During the Spring of 1865, no major battles were fought. The
whole South was reeling from  military  defeats,  desertion,
disease,  and  the impending since of doom.  The hundreds of
thousands of homeless and dispossessed choked  the  roadways
trying to find food, safety, and shelter amidst the scorched
ruins of their own  communities.   Militarily,  the  Union's
final focus was on the capture of Richmond; politically, the
Lincoln administration was beginning to develop policies for
dealing  the  ravaged and defeated South during the post-war
period of Union military occupation and political and social
reconstruction.                                             

Grant's  siege  upon  Petersburg, lasting for nearly a year,
came to an end on April 2  when  the  South's  last  citadel
finally  fell.   The  following  day,  Richmond capitulated.
Partly as a testament to Frederick Douglass's influence with
the   Lincoln  administration  (and  because  of  their  own
stalwart sacrifices and service) black soldiers secured from
their  white  officers  the  special  privilege of being the
first  Union  troops  to  enter  the  captured   Confederate
capital.   The  specific  unit that led the entrance was the
Fifth Massachusetts Calvary  commanded  by  Colonel  Charles
Francis Adams, who was a boyhood friend of Robert Gould Shaw
and a member of the famous Adams family  that  had  produced
two presidents of the United States.  In all, nearly 200,000
blacks served in the Union  Army  and  approximately  40,000
were  killed  in  battle.   In  only  two years of fighting,
twenty-eight black warriors won the  nation's  most  covered
military tribute, the Congressional Medal of Honor, and many
other black soldiers were awarded other combat decorations. 

On April 9, 1865, certainly the most significant  moment  in
all  of American history, General Lee surrendered his troops
to General Grant.  Fortunately  for  the  country,  Lee  and
Grant-who had great respect for each other-were officers and
gentlemen of the highest order.  They intuitively knew  that
at  Appomattox Courthouse they were truly functioning as the
nation in small  and  thus  they  hoped  that  their  fellow
countrymen  would  follow  their  examples.  The war of five
Aprils had come to  a  costly  end.   Approximately  700,000
Americans had died in only four years.  The North celebrated
in wild jubilation while the South wept and  reflected  upon
the  the  finality  of  its failure to become an independent
nation.                                                     

On April 14, while attending a performance of  Our  American
Cousin  at  Washington's  Ford's  Theatre, the president was
shot by  an  accomplished  Shakespearean  actor  named  John
Wilkes   Booth,   who  saw  in  the  role  of  Cassius  from
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.  Hours before he  murdered  the
president,  he  said  to  his fellow conspirators the famous
line enunciated by Cassius after Caesar is slain:           
#10
How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over,
In states unborn and accents yet unknown.

In his perverted line of logic, Booth saw himself as a loyal
southern patriot who had saved the nation from a tyrant.  How
could the man be a tyrant who  ended  his  second  Inaugural
Address   (delivered   only   a   few   weeks   before   his
assassination) with the soothing words, "Let three be malice
none, charity for all"?                                     

Frederick  Douglass  would  live  for  thirty  years  beyond
Lincoln's Death.  During that time he held several important
positions in the federal government and in his retirement he
was frequently invited to speak on his special  relationship
with  Lincoln  and his role in leading the Union to victory.
Douglass took pride in saying that although he  argued  with
and  occasionally  attacked  the  president,  he  never once
considered abandoning him or his social  agenda,  even  when
Mr.   Lincoln  would  articulate  the  idea,  odious to most
blacks, of returning them  to  Africa,  feeling  that  their
removal  was  the  only  real  solution  to resolving racial
animosity.  Of corse Douglass would have none of  this.   He
reminded  Lincoln  in  stern  language  that  this  was "our
country too.  We've worked it, we love it, and we fought and
died in the tens of thousands to save it."                  

On   April   14,  1876,  the  eleventh  anniversary  of  the
president's Assassination, a stature of Abraham Lincoln  was
unveiled  in  Lincoln  Park  in  the  nation's capital.  The
memorial's founder was Charlotte Scott, a former slave  from
Virginia  who  had  donated  five  dollars  from  her  first
earnings as a free citizen to erect a monument to The  Great
Emancipator.   The fitting featured speaker at the ceremony,
who lived only a few  blocks  from  the  Lincoln  Park,  was
Frederick  Douglass.   In  attendance  were president Grant,
members of both houses of Congress, Supreme Court  justices,
and  representatives  from  the  diplomatic corps.  As usual
Douglass gave a stirring speech, recounting his  association
with  the  former  president.   It  was  a  magnificent  and
masterly tribute.  Later that evening, he mentioned  to  his
daughter,  Rosetta,  that that day was the most important in
his life.  To be chosen to unveil the  statue  honoring  the
man  who  brought freedom to black people and victory to the
Union was an honor Douglass felt he would never equal.      

Frederick Douglass died in 1895 at the age of seventy-eight.
The  following year the U.  S.  Supreme Court, in its Plessy
v.  Ferguson ruling, upheld the  "Jim  Crow,"  separate  but
equal  laws  that  had  become  commonplace  throughout  the
de-militarized,  post-reconstruction  South.   Had  Douglass
lived  another  year he would have been deeply pained by the
decision  but  proud  of  Justice  John  Harlan's   eloquent
dissent:                                                    

There is no caste here.  Our Constitution is colorblind, and
neither  knows  nor tolerates classes among citizens...  the
law regards man  as  man.   and  takes  no  account  of  his
surroundings   or   his  color  when  his  civil  rights  as
guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.     

This controversial ruling would not be reversed until  1954,
the  centennial  year  of  the Kansas-Nebraska Act, when the
Court deeded in Brown v.  the Board  of  Education,  Topeka,
Kansas,    that    segregation   in   public   schools   was
unconstitutional.                                           

The Brown decision sired  the  "second"  civil  war,  better
known as the Civil Rights Movement, which would complete the
task that the first Civil  War  had  begun.   The  Frederick
Douglass  of  the second civil war was Martin Luther King, a
man of vision and valor, who often likened  himself  to  his
heroic  forerunner.   The  golden moment of the Civil Rights
Movement came when King gave his celebrated "I Have A Dream"
speech  from  the  steps  of  the  Lincoln Memorial in 1963,
marking  the  hundredth  anniversary  of  the   Emancipation
Proclamation.   Thus,  the  work  of  Frederick Douglass had
begun a century before was slowly coming to fruition.       

END